Letter to the Editor: Twisted logic of Star-Spangled ban

I never thought Iíd see the day that displaying the American flag was unacceptable in schools.

But thatís exactly what happened Feb. 27 when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in Dariano v. Morgan Hill Unified School District, upheld a California high schoolís decision to forbid students from wearing American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo.

Whatís the problem? To some students celebrating Cinco de Mayo, the displaying of our national colors was seen as a reason to threaten students.

Instead of allowing both sides to display Mexican and American symbols as they wished and reprimanding the students who became belligerent, the school decided to ban the American flag as a way to prevent hostilities.

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This is madness.

The courtís decision, if it stands, would equate the displaying of a flag as hate speech if someone ó anyone ó believes it to be an insult.

This means a bully can convince a principal to silence a student if that bully threatens to punch the student if he or she is allowed to continue speaking out on whatever topic upsets the bully. And, now, that includes displaying a flag.

In short: School administrators can prevent a student from displaying the American flag if the alternative is a classmate physically attacking you.

This is what has been called the ďhecklerís vetoĒ in that it rewards a violent actor by suppressing the speech thatís irritated him instead of punishing him for being violent.

Thatís exactly what happened here. When the students who had to stop displaying the American flag asked why the students displaying the Mexican flag werenít also asked to take off their shirts, the court essentially responded: Because no one was threatening to beat them up.

Many have fought and died for the right to carry that flag. Now a court, in all its tortured logic, has declared this show of pride to be dangerous enough for banning.

I am hopeful the United States Supreme Court will take this up on appeal and overturn this twisted logic.